Fellow

Miles Corak

Expertise: Economic Inequality, Labour markets, Unemployment

Miles Corak is a full professor of economics with the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa. His publications focus on labour markets and social policy, including child poverty, access to university education, social mobility, and unemployment. He has edited three books, and his paper published in the Journal of Economic Perspectives, “Income Inequality, Equality of Opportunity, and Intergenerational Mobility,” examines the relationship between inequality and social mobility across countries, a relationship that has become known as the “Great Gatsby Curve.” It was awarded the 2014 Doug Purvis Prize by the Canadian Economics Association, which annually recognizes a highly significant contribution to Canadian economic policy.

His research has been used by The White House, and cited by many of the major print and electronic media, including, among others, The Economist , The Financial Times, and The New York Times.Dr. Corak holds a BA in economics and political science and an MA in economics from McGill University, and completed his PhD at Queen's University. He joined the University of Ottawa in 2007 with 20 years experience in the Canadian federal government, most of that time spent as a director of research at Statistics Canada. He has held visiting appointments with UNICEF, the University of London, Princeton University, the Russell Sage Foundation, and Harvard University.

Posts & Activities by Miles Corak

While it is now only just over a year since the Occupy Wall Street movement began to draw attention to the wide and growing gulf between the 1% and the 99%, many have been quick to dismiss its staying power. After all, it was pointed out from the very beginning that the Occupy movement really did not have much to offer in terms of concrete policy proposals. Asked by the Wall Street Journal last October about his views on OWS, Martin Feldstein, the prominent Harvard economist, could only say: “I can’t figure out what that’s all about…I haven’t seen what they’re asking for.”

But the vagueness OWS projects in terms of its policy proposals is hardly a basis for dismissing its significance.